Nibbles – Page 481 – Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

July 20, 2007July 21, 2007

Beer diversity

There are 125 different styles of beer. I just need a cold one.

Liberian rice farmers can’t get hold of seeds

Risk of (more) rice genetic erosion in Liberia?

Taro wine

Japanese like taro wine made in Palau. Hugh Johnson unavailable for comment.

July 19, 2007July 19, 2007

Street legal

Man finds way to make legal absinthe in the US.

UK Heritage Seed Library

The Guardian UK profiles the Heritage Seed Library, conserving “illegal” varieties.

- China is building its germplasm collection at the National Frigid Zone Crop and Soybean Germplasm Resources Mid-term Bank in Harbin. Cool.
- Driscoll’s helped build China’s blueberry industry, then discovered that knowledge, infrastructure and genetics have a habit of escaping. Not so cool.
- Meanwhile, the Philippines wants its rice collection to hit 21,000 varieties by the end of the year. IRRI unavailable for comment.
- Italy is establishing a major global olive genebank. Unclear where it fits in with other major global olive genebanks, but some redundancy is good.
- FAO showcases Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems, where crops, landscapes and traditional knowledge have survived together. Like olives in Italy, I guess.
- The mangelwurzel is making a comeback, because apparently forgotten root vegetables just need better publicity, and not a fancy GIAHS.
- Ohio growers are trying to save the pawpaw just as Americans are discovering it, partly because of better publicity.
- BeanGPT is bringing AI to breeding and farming beans. Maybe it can help the mangelwurzel and pawpaw too?
Published on September 23, 2026